The commercial you are watching -don’t change the channel, please -will illustrate the featuresof Huntington’s disease.Our product’s unobtrusive.You may not see a signbut once we start that’s twenty years’inexorable decline.Your mum seems strangely lazy,your husband’s in a mood,your grandma’s having troublein managing her food.The symptoms of frustrationare hardly to be borneuntil your prayers are answeredand all feeling is withdrawn.It’s a deadly diagnosis –who wants to face the worst?Some seem to live in ignorance,some realise they’re cursed. But that’s the choice we offer.We think we’re here to stayso – will you look us in the eyeor will you turn away?

Not Normandy this time. Guernsey is nearbut warmer, with a golden August glow;a mix of greens on granite greys that fallincisive, slanting in the turquoise sea.He finds this bay and stalks it like a deer.Quick glimpses, as each twist along the trackunearths his prey, allows his sights to wheelon to a different line, a fresh attack.He loves the giggling girls, the way they squealgalloping into waves, no hint of shame,young creatures in the wild running free.One month, and fifteen canvases. Some haul.He drags his bulging bag of captured gameback to the kitchen of his studio.

Don’t be afraid to let your feelings showI tell the men. Although I have to readyour letters home, don’t let that make you coldtowards your loved ones. Tell them that you care.I’m one to talk. What can I tell my wife,my precious girls, the son I hardly know...?is a clarity in army lifewhich even in this godforsaken placegives me the sense of purpose that I need.An end in view. At least I shan’t grow old.I seem to be commanding. No-one knowsI write continuously, fill up the spacewith only capitals to mark the moments wheremy lines dive down, pretending to be prose.

Hugo ends up in Guernsey, forced to roambecause he can’t shut up. He’s on the runwith royalties enough to build a home.“Three-storey autograph” - so says his son.He raids the junk shops, finds chinoiserie,commissions carving from a ton of oaks,laying a trail of personality –a lover’s secrets, Latin mottoes, jokes.Up at the lighthouse top, he claims a denwhere freedom’s champion can work all day,then sleep. The mistress, and the family,recede. Will Garibaldi come to stay?Occasionally, he rests his busy pen,stares out into the blue, where France must be.